Philosophy and Fitness

OK. A while back I wrote a piece about how a specific result requires a specific course of action. For example if you goal is to compete in a sporting event, you need to train specifically to be fit and prepared for that event. If your goal is to lose a certain amount of weight and create a particular body type or physique, you need to train appropriately towards that goal. This is putting like putting a round peg in a round hole, and a square peg in a square hole.

Quite often however, people will follow a training program suitable to achieve a certain level of sporting performance, when their actual goal is to create a particular body type. The logic is something along the lines of "if I could do that I'd be really fit, and if I was really fit I'd have a great body". This is not always the case. Following a training program designed to deliver one outcome, but expecting it to produce some other result seems a lot like trying to put a square peg in a round hole to me.

The ancient sages saw ego driven desire for more material wealth, power, or anything else to be a distraction on the path to happiness or enlightenment. In modern society, more than ever we tend to be focussed on wealth and material possessions, often while neglecting our physical and mental health. It is interesting that this was seen as an issue even in ancient times.

It was easy for these ancient philosophers to say "all desire is ego driven" and recommend that you just chill out and stop wanting things, and then you'd be happy. The message is true, but these days we have bills to pay. These guys were usually of an age where they had fulfilled their obligations to the state and where able to spend their later years being hermits, or just growing vegetables and meditating and not worrying about too much.

Usually these were gentlemen of a certain age where they had fulfilled all of their duties to the state, and basically where in a position to just chill out and spend their time meditating and contemplating the way of things, and maybe growing some vegetables or something.

Obviously we have bills to pay, we need food on the table and a roof over our heads... and a decent internet connection, but the message from the old masters is to stop working yourself into the ground and stressing out over things that you don't really need for any reason other than that you have decided to.

Picture it this way: "I can't buy last years perfectly good but slightly smaller model at half the price, I have to have the latest most expensive one because that's important to me. But oooooh how am I going to pay for it? I'm already in too much debt! Oh well I guess I'll just have increase the limit of my credit card and hope I can cover the interest somehow... maybe I can do some extra hours at my horrible job." it's a lot like saying "ooooh if I could just force this square peg into that round hole" if the whole idea in the first place was in buying something nice to enjoy in your leisure time. It has already turned into more stress and less leisure time.

Getting back to our usual subject of health and fitness, what do I mean by all this?

It's simple. If your motivation is that you truly want to participate or compete in endurance events, train towards that goal. If your motivation is that you truly want to be a strength athlete you should train towards that goal. If you simply want to first achieve the basic level of human fitness I described in the previous entry (ie normal weight, full range of motion and mobility) and then progress to your ideal body type and composition... then that is what you must train for.

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Personal reflections on music and training.

So yesterday I wrote a little blog entry about my Referral System for Personal Training which is a big part of my business plan this year.

It got me thinking... I've always been motivated by wanting to actually achieve something, rather than just "for fun". For better or worse. Sometimes I wonder if that's actually a good and helpful thing or not.

For example when I was playing music, it was always about getting ready for a recording or a gig and I would usually expect things to progress steadily and I'd want to get to that goal within a reasonable time. A lot of people are happy just to turn up every week, sound like shit, not really get any better than last week but eventually over a period of a few years they eventually start to get half decent.

I should say... that's fine when you're a beginner. You just want to "jam" and it helps you to learn to play your instrument, learn to listen and play with other people, and so on. But once you've been playing for a while... hell, just because you've never played with a particular person before doesn't mean that you should sound like beginners again.

So, I'd only work with people who were serious about actually trying to get somewhere. People who'd show up to rehearsal on time, having practised their parts during the week... and so on.

I just realised there's a parallel with what I try to do with my PT business. It's not for everyone, either.

It's really not for the people who just have a spare Tuesday night and think it might be fun to hit the gym for a workout. What I'm passionate about is working with people who are serious about making steady progress towards a very specific result. And if there's a deadline like a wedding or some other important life event that we need to achieve that result by? All the better.

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Are you sure that exercise and dieting is making your healthier?

Something I have been thinking about a lot over the past few days is the importance of training with a focus on good health. It seems obvious, right? We eat right and work out because we want to stay healthy.

That might not really be the case though. I mean... you can't imagine many people NOT wanting to be healthy, or actually wanting to be unhealthy (no matter how much their behaviour / lifestyle would suggest it), but I'm saying this is more of an intellectual, logical reason rather than an emotional one. I think we are usually more motivated by emotion than logic, and the motivation to work out is usually to do with wanting to feel better about yourself. 

There's a bit of a politically correct notion around at the moment that we should all just feel better about ourselves automatically because we're nice people whether we're actually putting some effort into life or not. It's a nice thought and hard to argue with, but really... let's be real here; human beings did not become the dominant intelligent species by NOT applying themselves. We feel better about ourselves when we know we're not neglecting our health, are looking our best, and are taking steps in the direction we want our lives to go in.

So, whatever. Health may not be your primary motivator and that is fine as far as I'm concerned. But this next part is important. If you are training for aesthetics (aka "a hot body") and / or happiness, you are not likely to achieve either of these goals with an approach that is detrimental to your health. Sporting performance, however, is a different matter entirely.

Something I have talked about recently is that there is a Basic Level Of Human Fitness which relates to just being able to function in a natural environment, and then there is sports fitness. Particularly when we are talking about high intensity activities or endurance sports, we are applying a level of stress to our bodies that is beyond what would be expected under normal, natural conditions. 

Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Well, it depends. 

As I keep saying, our bodies are designed for survival and are very good at adapting. Therefore, with an appropriate amount of an appropriate type of exercise we will get stronger, and healthier. Assuming of course, that we are providing enough resources (that means nutrients, which means food) to allow the body to make this adaptation.

Is that what most people do though? Is that the message that is put out by the diet and weight loss industries, or the majority of the fitness industry? 

Nope. What most people are encouraged to do is "eat less, burn more".... this might be reasonable advice for people with a sedentary lifestyle and gluttonous junk food eating habits, but it DOES NOT APPLY to people who are actually exercising. 

The result of this message is that people are influenced towards activities that they believe "burn more calories", rather than those that will actually produce the desired physical results. Usually this means excessive amounts of high intensity cardio (perhaps in those fast paced, dance based group fitness programs), and / or excessive amounts of endurance training. I just got distracted because a commercial just came on the TV for a product to help "burn more calories while exercising". Now, why on Earth would that be a good thing?

More exercise on less fuel only means that you are putting your body through a level of stress that is not designed to endure, without giving it the opportunity to adapt and become stronger. Even if you are losing weight, even if your performance is still improving... you are not getting healthier, you are running yourself into the ground. 

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